Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

rested in my stomach. I wouldn’t have swallowed the damned thing if I’d known all this was going to happen! The official handed a purple envelope to the district chief. “The theatrical company.” The district chief held out the purple envelope and looked around for Sha Zaohua, who popped out from behind the door and took it from him. He shook her hand. “Study hard, girl,” he said, “and become a great actress.” The young woman handed Zaohua a bouquet of purple flowers. As she took the flowers, a shiny medal fell to the floor. The district chief bent down to pick it up. After reading what was written on it, he handed it to the mute, who was seated on the
kang.
I felt a surge of happy excitement as the mute pinned it to his own chest. Obviously, our family could now boast a master thief. Finally, the district chief took the last envelope — a blue one — from the official and said, “Comrade Speechless Sun, this is a wedding certificate for you and Shangguan Laidi. The district has already taken care of the details. All you two have to do is put your fingerprints on it sometime in the next few days.” The young woman reached out and placed a bouquet of blue flowers in the mute’s hand.
    “Aunty,” the district chief said, “do you have anything to say? Don’t be shy. We’re all one big, happy family!”
    Mother cast a troubled look at First Sister, who stood there holding her bouquet of red flowers, the side of her mouth twitching all the way over to her right ear. A few glistening tears leaped from the corners of her eyes and landed on her flowers, like dew covering their petals.
    “In the new society,” Mother said tentatively, “we should listen to our children …”
    “Shangguan Laidi,” the district chief, “do you have anything to say?”
    First Sister looked at us and sighed. “It’s my fate, I guess.”
    “Wonderful!” the district chief said. “I’ll send some people over to put the house in order so we can hold the ceremony tomorrow!”
    The night before Shangguan Laidi was formally married to the mute, I passed the gold ring.
    * * *
    The dozen or so doctors at the county hospital were organized into a medical group that, under the direction of a specialist from the Soviet Union, finally weaned me from my milk diet and aversion to regular food using the theories of Pavlov. Freed of that burdensome yoke, I entered school. My studies took off, and before much time had passed, I'd become the top first-year student at Dalan Middle School. Those were the most glorious days of my life. I belonged to the most revolutionary family around, I was smarter than anyone, I had an enviable physique and a face that made all the girls lower their eyes in shyness, and I had a voracious appetite. In the school cafeteria, I’d gobble down a huge piece of cornbread impaled on a chopstick and a thick green onion in my other hand while I was talking and laughing with the other kids. By the sixth month at school I’d jumped two grades and become the third-year class representative in my Russian class. I was admitted into the Youth League without having to apply and was quickly selected as a member of the branch propaganda committee, whose major function was to sing Russian folk songs in Russian. I had a strong voice, rich as milk and bold as a thick green onion, and I invariably drowned out all the voices around me. In short, I was the brightest star at Dalan Middle School during the latter half of the 1950s, and the favorite of Teacher Huo, a pretty woman who had once served as interpreter for visiting Russian experts. She often sang my praises in front of the other students, saying I had a gift for languages. In order to raise my proficiency in Russian, she arranged for a pen pal, a ninth-grade girl in a Soviet city, the daughter of a Soviet expert who had worked in China. Her name was Natasha. We exchanged photos. She gazed out at me with a slight look of surprise in her staring eyes, and lush, curling lashes.
2
    Shangguan Jintong felt his heart race and the blood rush to his head; the hand holding the photo trembled uncontrollably. Natasha’s full lips turned up slightly to reveal almost blindingly white teeth, and the warm, gentle fragrance of orchids seemed to rise up into his eyes, as a sweet sensation made his nose ache. He gazed at the flaxen hair that spread out over her silky shoulders. A low-cut scoop-collared dress that belonged either to her mother or to an elder sister hung